Kobe Bryant was the most polarizing figure in basketball for his supreme skills and extreme arrogance (that was before a certain player took his skills to South Beach). Some took pleasure in Bryant’s sex scandal, which imbued some humbleness into his porcupine-like persona.
Needless to say, Bryant has pretty much completely recovered from the rubble of image destruction for allegedly raping and sodomizing a low-level hotel employee in Colorado. Fantastic basketball exploits and a couple of NBA championships will do that for you.
